Dangerous nutty bitchez

Posted on August 2, 2009

Some of you may have been wondering what happened to Roy Sheppard after he stopped presenting the BBC’s early evening news for London back in 1991. Roy who? you’re probably thinking. Roy Sheppard. He’s a household name apparently, or at least he was once upon a time; well, according to his speaker profile he was anyway:

He anchored the early evening news on BBC television in London, England for nearly 5 years from 1986-1991. As well as fronting London Plus he also presented the news on BBC Breakfast Time working alongside Jeremy Paxman, Frank Bough, John Stapleton and Jill Dando.

He also presented BBC1s Open Air with Eamonn Holmes and Gloria Hunniford. He presented his own LBC talk show Success with Roy Sheppard (38 x one hour programmes transmitted at peak time on Saturday mornings – produced by his own production company)…

…Roys other broadcast experience includes programmes for BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4 (In The News – winning two Sony Awards), BBC Radio 5 – presenting a live phone-in show.

Author of The DJs Handbook described as the definitive book on the subject by the Controller of BBC Radio 1. He is also the author of the personal development book Press Pause on your Life (published by HarperCollins) and the motivational training tape Yes You Can.

I don’t know why Wikipedia have left him off their list of London Plus presenters: must be an error on their part.

So anyway, as you can see from that profile, Roy’s been a very busy man since he left the BBC. He’s been writing business books; he’s been touting himself around the place as a motivational speaker; he was a visiting lecturer on Cranfield University’s full-time MBA course; he’s set up a couple of websites including this one at FreelanceFutures.com, and he’s been particularly successful in his career as a specialist conference moderator and speaker, with an impressive client list that includes KPMG, the International Olympic Committee, Symantec Europe, and American Tobacco among others. (If you’re interested, Roy charges £4000 per conference day, £1500 per pre-production day, £1500 per day for corporate video presenting, and £250 per hour for voiceovers.)

Oh yes, and he also invented WowCardz, cards that look like business cards, but that are designed for people to present to random strangers in the street who they fancy, to save them the embarrassment of actually talking:

We see special people every day – but we don’t make a connection! They could be the ‘one’. But you’ll never know.

Saying ‘Hi’ can be SO difficult, can’t it?

They look so gorgeous – why would they possibly want to speak to ME?

What if they are seeing someone? What if they’re married? They have children with them – they MUST be with someone. Not necessarily. Guess what – beautiful and attractive people are always saying ‘Why doesn’t anybody ever talk to me?

We’re intimidated that’s why!

We created WowCardz as a fun way to make someone’s day without having to worry about being rejected. All you have to be is polite, respectful and smile. If they just smile back and don’t or can’t talk to you – at least you did something nice – you appreciated another human being.

His books include “Meet Greet and Prosper”, “Rapid Result Referrals” and “Your Personal Survival Guide to the 21st Century.” His most recent book is “Venus: The Dark Side”, published April 2008

Actually his most recent book, Venus: the Dark Side, published April 2008, was actually published first in September 2007 under the title That Bitch: Protect Yourself against Women with Malicious Intent. Look, they’ve even got the same cover picture:

Perhaps someone should tell Amazon that it’s not really fair to keep offering them together as part of a package, what with them being the samebook and all.

That Bitch, or Venus: The Dark Side “chronicles how unscrupulous women target and abuse innocent, gentle men, women and children. These women see their victims as having a character flaw that is there to be exploited.

The book explores the lying, cheating, conniving and manipulation of women with malicious intent. What are the everyday tricks of their tyrannical trade? How she claims to be the victim when she is the aggressor. And how this makes it far more difficult for genuine female victims to receive the help they need and deserve.”

Sheppard co-authored the book with Mary T Cleary, a former nurse and founder of the charity Amen, a confidential helpline and support service for male victims of domestic abuse and their children.

On the That Bitchwebsite, and on the Venuswebsite (essentially the same site replicated, ‘cos you know, they’re the same book) Sheppard explains how he had a sudden realisation one day that all his male friends who were being destroyed in the divorce courts by their nasty scheming ex wives were actually really really nice men:

Without exception every one of the men who were being skewered in the divorce courts by these women were men who I would describe as genuine, friendly, caring people. NICE men. Yes, appearances can be deceptive (as we discuss in the book) and no one can ever know for sure what goes on in private – but these were broken men, shattered by accusations they claimed were total fabrications. Their reputations were being shredded. And they seemed powerless to do anything about it. They just couldn’t understand why someone would be prepared to tell such lies about them. Understandably they took things very personally. They loved their children. They were good, hard-working guys. But many of them had imploded, some were barely able to function. Their work suffered. They were shells of their former selves and had lost most of what they had ever worked for. But EVERY time, the wife claimed that SHE was the victim.

A bit of research and some communication with Mary T Cleary later and the idea for the That Bitch book was born.

Now I’m not sure how successful the book has proved to be, well, outside of MRA circles that is: I haven’t been able to find any MSM reviews of it, but as as you can imagine the Men’s Rights Activists have lapped it up. Glenn Sacks, for example, gave it quite a bit of space on his site, as did our old friends at antimisandry.com. So now, on the back of all that MRA adulation, Roy Sheppard has decided to step things up a notch.

He’s now started up his own Youtube channel, called The Dangerous Women’s Channel, where he can be found pontificating on nasty evol scheming wimmin, and offering advice to any poor sap who might inadvertently have found himself embroiled with one.

Note his charming use of the expression nutters to describe people with personality disorders/mental health problems.

Here’s the transcript:

Personality disorders of a dangerous woman

The British comedian Jasper Carrot is convinced that he attracts what he calls nutters. Now most nutters are harmless enough, but some of them can be extremely dangerous. If you haven’t seen the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close watch it and see what Alex Forrest the female character is prepared to do to her former lover.

Now during the research for our book we met and interviewed a number of victims of women just like her. Some of our case studies are really shocking. What we found is that Jasper Carrot isn’t the only man who attracts more than his fair share of nutters, there are quite a few of them around.

Quite a few of the women that we’ve heard about have recurring personality traits, and it has to be said, dangerous men have similar personalities too. But we’re focusing here on dangerous women, some of their behaviours are simply different to men, not better or worse, they’re just different.

Many of the dangerous women that we write about are sociopaths and psychopaths: now what are they? Well, a sociopath is defined as an individual who knows the difference between right and wrong but is afflicted with an anti-social personality disorder. Sociopaths are rarely physically violent, but are often unscrupulously cruel and ruthless with their victims. Male and female sociopaths are estimated to be about 4% of the adult population, and about 70% of sociopaths grow up without a father, so as an increasing proportion of divorced fathers are being denied contact with their children, while mothers are being given the primary care role by family courts, you can comfortably expect that the number of sociopaths is going to increase in the next few decades.

Sociopaths and psychopaths both lack conscience, empathy, guilt and remorse: they don’t care about anybody else, and sometimes they don’t even care about themselves either, or what happens to them.

You know, most diseases and disorders harm the person suffering from them, but these conditions are perverse, because the innocent bystanders, the family members, and the partners and colleagues, they are invariably the ones who suffer through coming into contact with them. Most people with these disorders refuse point blank to accept that there’s anything wrong with them at all: denial is one of the symptoms of a sociopathic or psychopathic disorder, and refusing to accept any treatment or cure is another symptom. They don’t want to be treated. They either feel so great about being who they are, or they just dismiss their condition as somebody else’s problem. Because it is.

Now, as far as personality disorders go there are many variations, but I’m going to focus on just two of them today. Do you know a woman who exhibits the following personality traits?

She has an extreme and grandiose sense of her own self-importance.

She has an assumption of very high levels of own talent, her success, her good looks or her power and her beauty, even when these qualities are either absent or wouldn’t be recognised by people that she knows.

Does she insist on excessive and constant admiration?

Does she have a belief that she has a high degree of entitlement, because she believes that she’s special and therefore demands special treatment?

Does she have extremely selfish, self-serving and arrogant tendencies?

Does she have a readiness to take advantage of other people in any ways that she sees fit?

Does she have an inability to feel empathy for other people?

Does she find it difficult to love others because a deep love for herself always comes first?

Is she convinced that others are incredibly jealous of her even when they’re not?

And would she be described as very high-maintainance?

If she is most or all of those symptoms she probably has something called NPD, or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Can you think of an infamous woman like that, someone who used to be married to perhaps a legendary musician? No names (sneery smile).

Anyway, what about this other, more common personality disorder? How many of the following behaviours apply to a woman that you know?

Over time it’s become obvious that at the beginning of the relationship she was on her best behaviour. She seemed to be your perfect partner, but have you found that the more that she’s relaxed into the relationship with you, especially if you married her, the more of the real woman is being revealed. In the safe environment of the home is she now letting out years or even decades of anger that she’s had to suppress until now?

Are you now the focus of these intense even violent rages that seem to leap out of nowhere, and do these alternate between periods of being absolutely normal, and is even loving towards you which makes it then difficult to know where the hell you stand with her?

Do you feel that she’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? Is she a loving caring person one moment and then somebody so vicious that you just barely her recognise the next? And do you wonder which one of her is real and do you hope that it’s just a phase that will one day go away but so far it’s got no signs of going away?

And do you find that you’re walking on eggshells most of the time, knowing that no matter what you say or do it will get twisted and used against you in some way?

And are you blamed and criticised for just about everything that’s wrong in the relationship, even when the criticism doesn’t even make much sense to you? And does that make you question whether you are being the unreasonable one as she constantly tells you that you are?

Do you feel that you’re on an emotional rollercoaster with really high highs when things are incredible and fantastic, and then low lows consisting of feelings of despair, depression and grief for the relationship that you thought you had? And do you find that you feel that you’re concealing what you think and feel because you’re afraid of what her reaction will be and it just doesn’t seem worth the confrontation or a horrible fight or hurt feelings that will inevitably follow? And has this become so automatic for you that you now have a hard time understanding what you think and what you feel yourself?

Are you afraid to ask for things in the relationship because you’re being told that you’re too demanding or that there’s something wrong with you? Are you repeatedly told that your needs are wrong or unimportant? Do you feel nothing you do is ever right or when you do manage to do what she wants she suddenly presents new expectations because the rules keep changing and no matter what you do you can’t win?

Do you feel helpless and trapped every time this happens? Are you constantly accused of doing things you didn’t do and saying things you didn’t say? Ah, do you feel misunderstood a great deal of the time and when you try and explain she doesn’t believe you or doesn’t want to listen? Are you constantly put down, yet when you try to leave the relationship she tries to prevent you in a whole variety of different ways? She tries declarations of love or she promises to change, or she makes implicit or even explicit threats such as “you’ll never see the children again” or “nobody but me will ever want or love you.”

Do you have evidence of being lied to perhaps? Does she violently deny lying and deflect any conversation away from the topic when you raise it or does she seem to manufacture accusations to prove that you’re the liar? Do you feel that you’re being manipulated and controlled? Do you regularly wonder whether you’re losing your grip on reality because she’s always putting you down or denying that you have a right to a point of view? And does she act normally in front of other people so that nobody would believe that if you said what was going on between you? And does she insist that you not have contact with family or friends?

If she drinks or takes drugs does her behaviour become more erratic and obnoxious?

Is it next to impossible to plan anything such as a social engagement because of her moodiness, her impulsiveness, or unpredictability, and do you find that you’re making excuses for her?

And how often have you tried to convince yourself that that is all normal behaviour?

Well perhaps you’re now thinking “wow (obviously one of Roy’s favourite words) I had no idea that other people go through exactly the same as me”, well if you did you might like to know that she probably has BPD, or Borderline Personality Disorder. And some BPD sufferers also have a history of eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia and threats to commit suicide are regular, sometimes they’re carried out but mostly they’re threats, and extreme fears of abandonment could come from childhood trauma, but their totally irrational intense behaviour often encourages the very rejection that they fear the most.

In Venus the Dark Side we cover other personality disorders that dangerous women have too, and I hope you’ve found this video useful. Please share it with other people who you think might find it relevant. Thanks for watching.

Smooth isn’t he? And very very subtle. I particularly liked the way he snuck that bit in about how sociopaths come from fatherless families, and how now so many men are being denied contact with their children by the family courts, there’s going to be an increase in the numbers of sociopaths over the coming years.

Here’s Sheppard again, this time waxing lyrical about the tricks so-called dangerous women use to catch poor unsuspecting men: (No transcript this time, but the advice on this one boils down to: if you’re seeing a woman, search her house for a copy of the book The Rules. If she’s got one, she’s a nasty scheming manipulative bitch who’s out to trap you into marriage. Oh yes, and always use a condom ‘cos nasty scheming bitchez get pregnant to trap poor unsuspecting dupes like you.)

And here he is talking about women in the workplace (summary: some women bosses are ball-busting bitchez, and manipulative scheming women in the workplace can create havoc. Watch out for false accusations of sexual harassment.)

You’d think that with all this book writing, video recording, conference moderating and after-dinner speechifying that Roy Sheppard wouldn’t have time to do much else. But he does. In September for example, he’s going to be facilitating a one day business course on how to attract more clients discreetly; it’s going to be “An intensive, results-producing, ideas-generating, word-of-mouth stimulating, one-day seminar” apparently. “On the day you will learn how to: 1. Apply dozens of creative, simple, profit producing ideas with step-by-step guidance on how to implement similar strategies for your own business; 2. Enhance your personal and professional reputation; 3. Become better connected; 4. Educate your clients to speak well of you and send valuable business to you more often; 5. Acknowledge how the most successful businesses quietly capture clients under the noses of their competitors; 6. Turn new knowledge of the buying cycle into a powerful source for the most valuable referrals; 7. Apply reputation verifiers within your business; 8. Overcome referral resistance – internally and externally; 9. Ask for referrals. Know what to say and what NOT to do – ever!; 10. Ask for the best types of testimonials that lead to new business.”

I wonder if all his high-profile clients realise that Roy’s got a sideline going as a professional misogynist? I wonder how many women these clients send on Roy’s courses? I wonder if YouGov, who are advertising Roy’s course, are aware that they’re promoting a woman-hating MRA poster boy?

And I wonder if Roy can manage to get through a whole day without the word bitch crossing his lips…..

It would be nice to think that intelligent women would boycott any event this man was scheduled to appear at, but unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be the case. Next week for instance, he’s going to be speaking at the Mendip Business Women’s Forum in Wells, teaching them how to protect their sons, friends and work colleagues from their dangerous female contemporaries.

Sheesh. That transcript makes for grim reading. I don’t think there’s any advice I would trust from a man who manages to speak for over 9 minutes without actually managing to make a single valid argument.

1) NEVER mock or laugh at anyone who gives you a card – even if or when they are not ‘your type’. It takes a bit of courage to give a card. It might be the first time they’ve ever done it. Don’t discourage them.

2) You are never under any obligation to talk to the card giver, but common courtesy isn’t difficult. And it doesn’t cost anything. Simply smile as your way of conveying ‘thank you’.

So you’re not under any obligation to the mad stalker person, but actually you are. You have to be nice and not discourage them in their fledgling career of hassling random strangers in the street.

Actually the advice given in the last video, I have to say, isn’t bad as employment law advice goes. Everyone should always follow proper procedures. Roy is completely right there.

The problem is when say a random employer (not in any way connected to mine natch) doesn’t follow proper procedures, female employees complain and they are labelled ‘dangerous women’ because they bothered to actually read the HR manual, unlike the HR advisor.

Bullying bosses come in all shapes and sizes, not only female, though they can be female, certainly. And that’s very bad. However if you discriminate and your female employees pick you up on it, you’ve only got your stupid selves to blame. They’re only *dangerous women* if you think dangerous = has an elementary knowledge of employment law.

Oh, my journalist partner got a review copy of the original ‘That Bitch!’ version of this book. It was so hilarious I used to get it out when my friends came round. I wish I could remember some of our favourite quotes – it was truly Olympian in its patheticness.

I was surprised to see a woman had co-authored it, until I read the blurb and noted that she was one of the sub-set of Irish Catholic women that equates piety with some of the bitterest misogyny you’ll ever see.

i feel sick.
i like this line:
“If you haven’t seen the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close watch it and see what Alex Forrest the female character is prepared to do to her former lover.”
mayb you should watch that film and see what the michael douglas character does to the Alex Forrest hmm? as i recall, he murders her when she was pregnant. and audiences cheered. now, is it me, or is that pretty messed up?

and i like the fact he says divorced men are denied the right to see their children. i know this does happen, in a very very small minority of cases, but what is far more common are divorced or separated or absent fathers choosing not to see their children. or pay child support. or, you know, face up to their responsibilities of a father.

The trouble with this guy is that his hysterical approach devalues any truth that may lie in his argument (just try getting an unbiased divorce settlement in an Irish court, etc…)

As someone that experienced marriage to, and physical abuse from, a woman with a narcissistic personality disorder, I can see a persuasive line in his approach. But on further reading I gradually realised that this guy has created a mini industry stirring up discontent in male victims of bad marriages.

Female-on-male physical abuse isn’t taken as seriously as male-on-female abuse. This guy hasn’t helped, and his co-writer should know better having worked in an organisation such as Amen (amen.ie). They’ve helped me, and a few good friends too, but they wouldn’t stand behind the sort of alarmist shite this guy pedals.

Roy Sheppard is just an opportunist employing a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived imbalance in gender equality, and he’s sweeping up a lot of ‘nice’ but rather naive men in his wake.

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